A former Michigan investment manager has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with defrauding five investors of at least $1.15 million by not investing their funds as promised, the regulator announced Friday.
Registered representative Mark Hopkins of Clarkston, Mich., has been charged for taking hundreds of dollars from clients with the promise that they would invest the money in a local credit union’s investment program. The credit union had no such investment program, the SEC complaint said.
The investments, to be made through a brokerage firm he was affiliated with, were supposed to be short term and pay 6% or 7% profit. Rather than investing the customers’ funds, Hopkins deposited the money into an account he controlled at the credit union and misappropriated it, the SEC said. The complaint did not say what he did with the money.
Hopkins convinced his clients, including a married couple in their 60s and an 87-year-old individual, to transfer their funds from a brokerage account to the nonexistent investment account starting in 2017, the complaint said. The clients became suspicious after one investor began asking questions about the return of his principle and interest.
The SEC said Hopkins provided the customers with falsified account statements to conceal his fraud. It is asking that Hopkins be forced to return the alledgely fraudulently obtained money and pay civil penalties.